Please join us for a conversation with Lotte Lieb Dula and Briayna Cuffie, creators of reparations4slavery.com, as we explore different aspects of the movement for reparations for slavery. We’ll look at the genesis of white wealth in parallel with the historical harms that resulted from the enslavement of African Americans, creating the current 10-to-1 racial wealth gap, using Lotte’s and Briayna’s ancestral narratives as the backdrop for our conversation. We’ll also look at retooling harmful family narratives that uphold the culture of white supremacy. Includes brief Q and A session. 

Presenter bios

Lotte Lieb Dula: After discovering that she was a descendant of slaveholders Lotte Lieb Dula, retired financial strategist,  founded www.reparations4slavery.com, a portal for white families wishing to walk the path of racial healing through  making reparations. Lotte co-convenes Coming To the Table’s Denver Chapter and is a founding donor of Reparations  Circle Denver. 

Briayna Cuffie is a strategist, advocate, and future author based in Annapolis, Maryland. She leverages her political  expertise, teachings from her elders, and history, to help others understand the complexity of Blackness in the United  States. Briayna is involved with Coming To the Table’s Annapolis chapter and is the racial equity advisor for  reparations4slavery.com 

**THIS EVENT IS CURRENTLY SOLD OUT - BUT CHECK WITH US AT [email protected] IN CASE THERE WAS A CANCELLATION! **

Our live Black History Month Luncheon is back!  The deadline to reserve & pay is Tuesday, February 7th, 5pm…but attendance is very limited, so the first to RSVP will be the first served! 

We’ll enjoy a welcome drink, family-style meal, and slice of cake at Dooley’s American Smoke House in Brussels, with a program of song & inspiration from our DAB Community, including:

• Briana Ashley Stuart, a performing artist, choreographer and dance entrepreneur, originally from Detroit, Michigan.
• Dorrie Wilson, an independent researcher, writer and cultural curator on her talk to the European Parliament, "People Are Trapped in History and History is Trapped in Them”.
• Wilford Simmons, a North Carolina voter, retired from the military, who lives and coaches sports in Mons.

Prices are as follows (food is served on platters, family-style, to be shared at the table):

• Classic Soul Food Combo Menu (variety of smoked meat & sides) - €22
• Vegetarian Soul Food Menu (variety of smoked veggie delights & sides)- €19
• Menu for Kids 12 & under (sliders, chicken nuggets, fish fingers) - €12
• Homemade Iced Tea - €10 (for a pitcher of 5 glasses)
• Homemade Lemonade - €10 (for a pitcher of 5 glasses)

Please RSVP here and we will email you instructions for payment and other details soon! And if you are bringing children, please just RSVP for the number of adults in your party and then respond to our confirmation email to let us know how many children you will bring. Thank you!

The National Welfare Rights Organization 1966 - 1975

An outgrowth of the Civil Rights Movement: Women of Color Rising to lift themselves and their children out of poverty.

Join the Global Black Caucus for an insightful webinar, during Black History Month 2023, and learn more about the significance of the National Welfare Rights Organization and its activism and legacy which still carries on today.  

February 11, 2023, at 10:00 AM EST / 16:00 PM CET / 23:00 HKT 

This webinar is facilitated by Miriam Victory Spiegel, Democrats Abroad Switzerland, born in 1945 in New York City, long-time activist, Community Organizer in New York 1968 – 1980, and Couples and Family Therapist, in Zürich, Switzerland since 1990.

During this webinar, Miriam will begin her presentation by focussing on the events that she experienced as an activist and community organizer in New York City in 1968. She will describe the theoretical basis of the creation of the National Welfare Rights Organization and its inception within the framework of the Civil Rights Movement. To contextualize, she will share a rearview mirror with us, looking back and trying to understand why so many people of color were left behind in mid-sixties America and seemed doomed to a life of poverty, limited education, poor health, and unemployment. These reflections will take us on a historical journey beginning in 1619 and ending in 1968….

This event is being co-sponsored by the Global Women's Caucus.

Join us for an insightful webinar on February 11, 2023, at 10:00 AM EST / 16:00 PM CET / 23:00 HKT 

As we are already gearing up for the next election cycle, please consider making a donation to help get out the vote in 2024. We can not win the Presidential Election without you!

Donate today at: https://www.democratsabroad.org/bc-donations

Walk-In 4:45 p.m. Tribute & Dinner 5:30 - 8:00 p.m.

€32.50 ~ € 20 for kids to 12
“Everyone is Welcome!”

Reservations and Payment Information :
[email protected] MLK RES. Tel. 0654253650
Rev. Harcourt Klinefelter & Lois Mothershed Pot will speak.

Rev. Klinefelter worked for Dr. King for 3 years. Lois Mothershed Pot was
the first Black student in her university and the first Black president of the
Christian Students Union. Her sister was one of the “Little Rock Nine.”

Young people will focus on what the Dream means to their tomorrows.
From New York, Jazz singer and actress Adrienne West will perform as well
as Liat Alkan, lyric soprano. Liat will also direct the Messengers, a student
vocal group.

The American Ambassador to the Netherlands, the Honorable Shefali Razdan Duggal will share her thoughts.

Please bring ID - a driver’s license, student identification, passport etc.
Because Nieuwspoort is in the same building as the Second Chamber of the
Dutch Parliament, it is necessary to go thru a Security Check.

The Respect for Marriage Act ensures that not only same-sex marriages but also interracial marriages are enshrined in federal law.

The Supreme Court overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion reminds all of us, that whatever rights we have in this society are conditional — they can be taken away, and the fact that Congress had to take up this issue in 2022 should be a stark reminder of that fact for us.

The Respect for Marriage Act, which passed the Senate last week, had been picking up steam since June when the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion. That ruling included a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested the high court should review other precedent-setting rulings, including the 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

While much of the attention has been focused on protections for same-sex marriages, interracial couples are glad Congress also included protections for their marriages, even though their right to marry was well-established decades ago.

It’s a little unnerving that these things where we made such obvious progress are now being challenged or that we have to beef up the bulwark to keep them in place.

So many of those things that have just been taken for granted ... are under threat.

But why is Loving v. Virginia so significant? 

One day in the 1970s, Paul Fleisher and his wife were walking through a department store parking lot when they noticed a group of people looking at them. Fleisher, who is white, and his wife, who is Black, were used to “the look.” But this time it was more intense.

“There was this white family who was just staring at us, just staring holes in us,” Fleisher recalled.

That fraught moment occurred even though any legal uncertainty about the validity of interracial marriage had ended a decade earlier—in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws banning marriages between people of different races.

In more than half-century since interracial marriage has become more common and far more accepted. So Fleisher was surprised that Congress felt the need to include additional protection in the Respect for Marriage Act, which was given final approval in a House vote Thursday. It ensures that not only same-sex marriages but also interracial marriages are enshrined in federal law.

The 74-year-old Fleisher, a retired teacher and children’s book author, attended segregated public schools in the 1950s in the then-Jim Crow South and later saw what he called “token desegregation” in high school when four Black students were in his senior class of about 400 students.

He and his wife, Debra Sims Fleisher, 73, live outside Richmond, about 50 miles from Caroline County, where Mildred Jeter, a Black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were arrested and charged in 1958 with marrying out of state and returning to Virginia, where interracial marriage was illegal. Their challenge to the law led to Loving v. Virginia, the landmark ruling that ended bans against interracial marriages.

The Respect for Marriage Act ensures that not only same-sex marriages but also interracial marriages are enshrined in federal law.

The Supreme Court overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion reminds all of us, that whatever rights we have in this society are conditional — they can be taken away, and the fact that Congress had to take up this issue in 2022 should be a stark reminder of that fact for us.

The Respect for Marriage Act, which passed the Senate last week, had been picking up steam since June when the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion. That ruling included a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested the high court should review other precedent-setting rulings, including the 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

While much of the attention has been focused on protections for same-sex marriages, interracial couples are glad Congress also included protections for their marriages, even though their right to marry was well-established decades ago.

It’s a little unnerving that these things where we made such obvious progress are now being challenged or that we have to beef up the bulwark to keep them in place.

So many of those things that have just been taken for granted ... are under threat.

But why is Loving v. Virginia so significant? 

One day in the 1970s, Paul Fleisher and his wife were walking through a department store parking lot when they noticed a group of people looking at them. Fleisher, who is white, and his wife, who is Black, were used to “the look.” But this time it was more intense.

“There was this white family who was just staring at us, just staring holes in us,” Fleisher recalled.

That fraught moment occurred even though any legal uncertainty about the validity of interracial marriage had ended a decade earlier—in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws banning marriages between people of different races.

In more than half-century since interracial marriage has become more common and far more accepted. So Fleisher was surprised that Congress felt the need to include additional protection in the Respect for Marriage Act, which was given final approval in a House vote Thursday. It ensures that not only same-sex marriages but also interracial marriages are enshrined in federal law.

The 74-year-old Fleisher, a retired teacher and children’s book author, attended segregated public schools in the 1950s in the then-Jim Crow South and later saw what he called “token desegregation” in high school when four Black students were in his senior class of about 400 students.

He and his wife, Debra Sims Fleisher, 73, live outside Richmond, about 50 miles from Caroline County, where Mildred Jeter, a Black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were arrested and charged in 1958 with marrying out of state and returning to Virginia, where interracial marriage was illegal. Their challenge to the law led to Loving v. Virginia, the landmark ruling that ended bans against interracial marriages.

The past year has further exposed the inequalities in American society. From the pandemic to affordable housing, access to education and the effects of climate change. Nowhere has the inequality gap grown more than exercising the right to vote. 

While January 6th culminated with a violent act to deny our legal and constitutional right to vote, the assault has persisted. To date, 19 state legislatures have passed laws that make it harder for students, people of color, low income and physically challenged Americans to vote. And there are no less than 163 congressional candidates who believe and campaign on the big lie that the election was stolen.

As we remember Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on what should have been his 93rd birthday, let us not only honor his legacy but uphold it … not fail it! As Americans of all races and creeds living abroad and stateside, our right to vote is not a forgone conclusion. 

The pace of voting rights for all citizens has been long and arduous. It has taken over a century for America to give all U.S. citizens the right to vote. Yes, 100 years. When Black men were given the right through the 15th amendment, restrictive state laws, poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather made it nearly impossible to vote. When women got the right to vote in 1920, it did not include minority women. From 1924 to 1962, Indigenous, Asian and Washington D.C. residents were enfranchised.

It was not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that enforced the 15th amendment at the federal level to become one of the most far-reaching and important civil rights legislation in U.S. history. 

This was the life’s work of Dr. King … his legacy. Dr. King gave his life for this. We stand on his and the shoulders of Hosea Williams and John Lewis. We must uphold the dream.

Since the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 18 year olds, non-English speaking citizens  and Americans abroad, had been given the right to vote in 1971, 1975 and 1976, respectively. And in 1982, the Reagan administration … the Reagan administration … extended it for 25 years.

Today, our voting rights lie in peril as states have, 100 years later, enacted laws that restrict all of our access to the ballot. How will we meet this moment? How will we honor Dr. King’s legacy? 

Why is this taking so long? If segregationists and trickle down theorists can protect voting rights, Senators Manchin and Sinema can support the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.

Rest in power, Dr. King. We honor you. We will not fail you.

Leedonal (Jazz) Moore, Chair 
Democrats Abroad Global Black Caucus

Video Excerpt of Dr. Martin Luther King's speech - I HAVE A DREAM

JOIN THE GLOBAL BLACK CAUCUS

SUPPORT THE GLOBAL BLACK CAUCUS

How We Remember And Honor Dr. King’s Legacy

The past year has further exposed the inequalities in American society. From the pandemic to affordable housing, access to education and the effects of climate change. Nowhere has the inequality gap grown more than exercising the right to vote. 

While January 6th culminated with a violent act to deny our legal and constitutional right to vote, the assault has persisted. To date, 19 state legislatures have passed laws that make it harder for students, people of color, low income and physically challenged Americans to vote. And there are no less than 163 congressional candidates who believe and campaign on the big lie that the election was stolen.

As we remember Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on what should have been his 93rd birthday, let us not only honor his legacy but uphold it … not fail it! As Americans of all races and creeds living abroad and stateside, our right to vote is not a forgone conclusion. 

The pace of voting rights for all citizens has been long and arduous. It has taken over a century for America to give all U.S. citizens the right to vote. Yes, 100 years. When Black men were given the right through the 15th amendment, restrictive state laws, poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather made it nearly impossible to vote. When women got the right to vote in 1920, it did not include minority women. From 1924 to 1962, Indigenous, Asian and Washington D.C. residents were enfranchised.

It was not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that enforced the 15th amendment at the federal level to become one of the most far-reaching and important civil rights legislation in U.S. history. 

This was the life’s work of Dr. King … his legacy. Dr. King gave his life for this. We stand on his and the shoulders of Hosea Williams and John Lewis. We must uphold the dream.

Since the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 18 year olds, non-English speaking citizens  and Americans abroad, had been given the right to vote in 1971, 1975 and 1976, respectively. And in 1982, the Reagan administration … the Reagan administration … extended it for 25 years.

Today, our voting rights lie in peril as states have, 100 years later, enacted laws that restrict all of our access to the ballot. How will we meet this moment? How will we honor Dr. King’s legacy? 

Why is this taking so long? If segregationists and trickle down theorists can protect voting rights, Senators Manchin and Sinema can support the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.

Rest in power, Dr. King. We honor you. We will not fail you.

Leedonal (Jazz) Moore, Chair 
Democrats Abroad Global Black Caucus

Video Excerpt of Dr. Martin Luther King's speech - I HAVE A DREAM

Our Voices Count Too
(for Angela Fobbs)

There are many who discredit
Those who follow the call
The fist raised in protest
The lament in the darkness

But even in the light of day
There should be a semblance
Of compassion for the needy
A deterrent to the greedy

Our blackness has a voice
Which was silenced too long
Threatened by the spineless
Desecrated by the narcissists

Our voices intone melodies
That can uplift nations
Inspire to transpose
Leave defamers dumbstruck

Our voices have built bridges
While soothing the fatigued
Our prescience gives America a grace
A reason to need feel honored

Should we now sit mutely by
When we realize that our voices joined
Hold an unfeigned promise
Which underscores much more
Than the rantings of the tyrannical?

Camille Elaine Thomas
August 30, 2021
[email protected] All rights reserved